HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Exeter Times-Advocate, 1966-10-20, Page 4.............................. . .1 ............ ................. . ...... . ...... ....,..,.... • ... , .... . ..
Overcome temporary pressures?
In April, 1964, this newspaper car-
ried an account of a Grand Bend coun-
cil meeting which stated that council
admitted that the village refuse ground
in 'Bosanquet Township posed a major
threat to the entire lakeshore area and
it was agreed to look into acquiring an-
other site.
At that time we heartily endorsed
the action of the resort council, noting
that no group would better appreciate
the value of the Pinery and its attrac-
tion to tourists and summer residents
alike.
To refresh some memories, the
promise made by council had been tak-
en after several acres of trees in the
vicinity of the dump had been de-
stroyed by fire and several homes in
the vicinity—and for that matter, right
up to the resort itself—had been seri-
ously threatened.
This newspaper expressed hope at
that time that the consideration prom-
ised by council would be the honest
kind, one that leads to action, rather
than the pigeon-hole type which politi-
cians sometimes use to overcome tem-
porary pressures.
We concluded with these words;
"Finding another location for a muni-
cipal dump may not be easy, but it must
be done. It's folly to endanger one of
this region's finest natural resources
for the sake of a place to put gar-
bage".
At the present time, the disposi-
tion of the Grand Bend dump is before
the courts as a result of legal action
started by the Township of Bosanquet,
who this year passed a bylaw prohibit-
ing the dumping of garbage within
that municipality,
Who is right and who is wrong
will apparently be up to the courts to
decide, but in view of promises made
in 1964, it is difficult to understand
why the situation has now become a
legal issue.
By Val Baltkalns
716emie de waft de 44
Thanksgiving
is the best
Just a word to the wise
Although the bicycle season will
soon be curtailed for the summer
months, it is not too late to cite the
dangerous manner in which many lo-
cal youngsters cavort on their two-
wheeled outfits.
Anyone who has attempted to
drive down Victoria Street after classes
at the Exeter Public School have been
dismissed will probably realize that
words can really not describe some of
the actions pulled off by the young-
sters.
We had occasion to be in that vi-
cinity recently and witnessed the fol-
lowing: children riding five abreast
down the street, crossing over the
street without even a quick glance over
their shoulders, doing U-turns in the
middle of the road, and riding on the
sidewalk.
Fortunately, we have had few ac-
cidents involving youngsters on bi-
cycles, but it is always more good luck
than good management, and it is for-
tunate that most area drivers appear
to give bike riders the cautionary ap-
proach that is obviously needed.
The instruction for youngsters
should certainly come from parents,
but they can certainly do with some
assistance. Many schools, in conjunc-
tion with local service clubs or the
police department, have periodic bi-
cycle rodeos that not only permit some
competition among youngsters, but in
addition point up the many rules of
the road and the necessity of obeying
them.
Such a venture appears warranted
in this community along with frequent
reminders from parents and teachers
that riding a bicycle brings with it
many responsibilities, with failure to
carry them out resulting in catastro-
phes.
This appears to be a worthwhile
project for the council's protection to
persons and property committee to un-
dertake and we're certain that through
leadership, many local groups would be
happy to assist in whatever ways ap-
pear necessary.
It is rather folly to expect young-
sters to know the rules of the road with-
out some expert instruction. After all,
many of their elders don't know them
either.
Many people will be celebrating
anniversaries of various nature within
the next few days. Most of the anniver-
saries will be enjoyable, but for five
youths, the event they mark will be in
recollection of unpleasantness.
It was about one year ago that five
area youths were charged with mali-
cious damage — coinciding as such
things often do, with an annual occur-
rence known as Hallowe'en.
We have no intention of recalling
the names of the lads. involved, or
even the incident. But with Hallowe'en
rolling around again, the outcome
should certainly be borne in mind by
all youths who answer the urge to get
out and do some mischief. In addition,
remembering that the lads paid a total
of $600 in fines, it might be well for
some parents to do some thinking as
well, unless they or their offspring are
in a financial position to squander
money needlessly on fines.
At a time when teenagers are be-
ing criticized from all corners, it is
well to point out that few of them are
different than their elders were during
those younger days. In fact, the key to
the situation is that our police have
become better equipped than they were
in pa's days, and our lines of communi-
cation are much more complex, so acts
of today are known by all.
There are two things we trust area
youths will remember in the next few
days. They may not pull off any stunts
worse than dad did, but their chances
of being caught are much greater.
If they are caught, they have am-
ple precedent to know that their ac-
tions will be severely dealt with by the
courts. If you don't believe us, just ask
the five area lads who found out from
experience last year. They even ended
up with criminal records for their
thoughtlessness.
We are not gullible enough to
think that this editorial will be read
by many of the youths who will be
wandering the streets on Hallowe'en.
But we do suggest that it may pay
dividends for some parents to bring it
to their attention.
Times Established 1873 Advocate Established 1881 Amalgamated 1924
`fie exciferZimes-Usoate
SERVING CANADA'S BEST FARMLAND
Member: C,W.N.A., O.W.N.A., C.C.N.R. and ABC
Publishers: J. M. Southcott, R. M. Southcott
Editor: Bill Batten
Advertising Manager: Val Baltkalns
Phone 235-1331
Published Each Thursday Morning at Exeter, Ont.
Authorized as Second Class Mail, Post Office Dept, Ottawa,
and for Payment of Postage In Cash
Paid in Advance Circulation, March 31, 1966, 4,180
SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Canada $5.00 Per Year; USA $7.00
...... ......... • ...... ' .
One -.04101:$ opinion
troos $0110C dyne ......
Bright
enough?
Mud makes GB site look good
No better than elders
We're not certain who penned
the old adage about the best laid
plans of men and mice sometimes
going astray, but we have reason
to believe it was someone con-
nected with the International
Plowing Match.
This is an event that has often
seen the weather dash its suc-
cesses, but perhaps there have
been few times when it was quite
as significant as this year's event
in Seaforth.
According to the description
found in our trusty dictionary,
the grounds at Seaforth couldn't
even be listed as a quagmire.
A quagmire is described by Web-
ster as soft, wet miry land which
yields under the foot.
Certainly this was not the case
on Thursday during our visit to
the Match. The land was yielding
right up to the knee in some
places, let alone just under the
foot.
The weather for outdoor events
at this time of year is always a
calculated risk, but certai n1 y
there was no calculating the a-
mount of bad weather that was to
show once again that nature holds
the upper hand in much of our
life.
The bad weather, of course,
was a keen disappointment to
Match officials who had expend-
ed countless hours in ensuring
the success of this year's event.
There was every indication that it
would be the most successful on
record, and those who worked
to that end are to be highly
commended.
* * * *
While the ankle deep mud made
our tour of the grounds extreme-
50 YEARS AGO
The household effects of Dan
Hartleib were sold by auction
Friday with the house and prop-
erty being sold to Ed Treble
for $325.
Messrs. Alfred Wuerth, Free-
man Morlock, Erwin Fahner and
Sylvester W u e r t h of Crediton
spent the weekend in Detroit.
Mr. William Andrews has pur-
chased the fine brick residence
of Mr. W. B. Levett on the
corner of William and North
Streets.
25 YEARS AGO
Over twelve hundred people
were fed at the hot goose supper
provided by the ladies of the EIJB
church, Crediton, Thursday
evening. The net proceeds for
the evening are close to $600.
Mr. John Dawson, meter repair
man at the Exeter Hydro Office,
moved to Woodstock last week
where he has secured a position
With the Woodstock Hydro.
Lorne Passmore of Usborne
won second prize in the tractor
class at the International plowing
match at Peterborough last Wed-
nesday.
Mr. 0, A. Martin, who for the
past three years has been station
master at the EXeter depot, has
accepted a similar position at
Harriston.
ly risky —and briefer than we had
expected — some of the exhibits
erected by various organizations
within the county were among the
highlights we did see.
One of the exhibits also pro-
vided a bit of a paradox. The
hogs in the Hog Producers' show-
ing were much cleaner than most
of the people watching them.
The three buildings showing
exhibits of county livestock, pro-
duce and items from the museum
were the most crowded of any we
saw, but this may have been due
in no small part to the fact they
were near the front gate and
offered welcome shelter from the
elements.
We never did see any plowing,
other than a brief stop to watch
some horses pulling plows in a
field near the main road into the
tented city.
This, of course, is one of the
oddities of the International
Plowing Match. Only a small
portion of those in attendance
ever do see any plowing, re-
gardless of the weather condi-
tions.
We came away from the Plow-
ing Match thinking a bit about
the events that brought it to Sea-
forth. As readers may well re-
call, the initiating action was
brought about by the Grand Bend
Chamber of Commerce, headed
by Ory Wassmann, who is now
reeve at the resort.
Yours truly attended that first
meeting when Ory and his fellow
members pointed out that the
Grand Bend air port would be
an ideal site, as he explained that
the tented city could be erected
15 YEARS AGO
John Armstrong, ex-reeve of
Hullett Township, and, who two
years ago was warden of Huron
County, was chosen as the liberal
candidate to contest the riding
of Huron in the forthcoming pro-
vincial election at a rally of
the Liberals that packed the Hen-
sall Town Hall Tuesday evening.
Mr. and Mrs. J, T, Allison
of Thames Road celebrated their
sixty-first wedding anniversary
on Tuesday.
Grand Champion of the WOAA
baseball series, Exeter Bantams
will be presented with their tro-
phies at a theatre party Thurs-
day evening in the Lyric Theatre.
10 YEARS AGO
Mr. Andrew Johnston opened
a new drug store in Exeter over
the weekend between the Bell
Telephone office and Snell Bros.
Ltd.
Messrs. Frank Taylor, George
Lawson, Walter Cutbush and Al-
fred Hunkin of the Exeter Senior
Citizens Club attended the
Central Zone conference held at
Woodstock, Saturday.
Exeter Curling Club staged Its
first practice in the local arena
Wednesday afternoon.
Close to 40 4-II members from
Huron County will compete in the
Queen's Guineas class at the
Royal Winter Fair next month,
in such a way that pedestrian
and vehicular traffic could use
the runways, thus eliminating any
problems if adverse weather con-
ditions did prevail.
The reasons why Grand Bend
was not chosen were never really
aired in the dispute that followed
when Seaforth was picked, but
whatever they were, the circum-
stances that befell the 1966 Match
will prove that those reasons
were not as valid as the con-
sideration cited by the Grand
Bend Chamber of Commerce in
promoting their site.
However, the resort group will
be able to make their point more
emphatic in the future — perhaps
even to the point of extending an
invitation to make the old air
field a permanent site for the
match.
LETTERS T.% EDITOR
Smiley rebuked
Dear sir,
I couldn't resist Mr. Smiley's
request for opinions on boys'
long hair so I decided to write
to my editor.
I can take long hair or leave
it. It neither enthralls nor repels
me, but I do believe in personal
freedom, and I feel that that
freedom extends to the length and
style of your haircut,
Perhaps if we followed the pol-
icy of live and let live it would
be better. If some boys want
to wear their hair long then it is
all right with me. The choice is
entirely theirs.
We have a few shaggies at
South Huron District High, and
I feel that our principal, Mr.
Palmer, is to be commended
for his lack of action. He has said
nothing, to my knowledge, to
them, and thus has eliminated
any hard feelings that might have
occurred had hetaken any decisive
action.
All of this fuss that some prin-
cipals create merely lends a
phony prestige to the fad,
It did infuriate me, however,
when Smiley said (referring to Sir
John A. Macdonald and Einstein)
that they probably "didn't spend
several hours a day combing
and admiring their locks".
Is he insinuating that long hair-
ed boys are the only members
of the male sex who work foolish-
ly on their hair? He had better
take a long, hard look at the
older, "more sensible" meni
Many "hair stylists', (a new
term for the old barber) are
opening shops in Major urban
centres where men have hair-
cuts by appointment only. They
employ hair netS and blowers
along with regular barbers' tools
in an effort to make their custom -
ers satisfied.
Such shops as the Brilminel
Shop and Carusoe's in Toronto
are geared not necessarily to-
wards youth but towards the aver-
age, middle aged, middle income
Man.
To top this off, The Miss Clair-
A man visiting London, Eng-
land found the weather much as
he'd expected--dismal, rainy and
generally unpleasant. He was sit-
ting in a restaurant and said to
his waiter, "What kind of weath-
er can we expect today"?
Without even glancing up the
waiter replied, "Oh, it's going to
be bright enough".
That expression can be applied
to life in general and when it is,
it becomes a simple declaration
of faith. It is the reasonable con-
fidence of a believer in God —
in the Father Jesus believed and
trusted.
Notice that this man didn't
say it would be bright, He had
seen too many days blanketed
by fog to have been blithely opti-
mistic but there was still a basic
faith left.
There is a fog over much of
our common life too. There is a
pride of intellect which keeps
us from hearing what God has
said and what He is saying in
the events of our time.
There is a pride of possession
which leads to greed and an ar-
rogant lack of concern for other
people. It leads to self seeking,
a sick status consciousness, a
self centred conceit.
There is a pride of race and
nation which can very easily lead
to hatred, violence and a pathetic
yet threatening type of flag wav-
ing. Witness the recent rebirth of
Naziism in Germany and the
right wing fanaticism in the U.S.
Tnere is an obvious fallenness
about human nature which we
experience only too well in our-
selves. So we often lose patience
with ourselves. As we look out
on our world we see this same
fallenness and we lose patience
with the management of our na-
tion and world.
Ultimately we lose patience
with God because of His apparent
lack of action and His apparent
indifference.
But He never does for us or
for our world what he has given
us the power to do ourselves.
As someone has said we must
not expect God to miraculously
solve all our problems — "No
bread is expected to fall from
heaven to relieve us of the task
of teaching man to provide his
own: no angel with a flaming
sword will appear to halt our
As a Canadian, what is your
favor. ite holiday in the year?
Think carefully, now. (No ob-
jection to Yanks playing the
game.)
Originally, our holidays had
religious overtones. Hence, the
term holy days: Christmas,
Good Friday, Thanksgiving.
Then we developed patriotic
-- or, if you prefer political
holidays. These include such
stirring times as Dominion Day,
now better known as The First
of July; British Empire and Com-
monwealth and The Queen's Bir-
thday; Armistice or Remem-
brance Day.
Finally, we have a few pure
pagan holidays tossed in; Labor
Day; Civic Holiday and New
Year's Day.
Well, let's start at the bottom,
and eliminate, Civic Holiday has
no significance whatever. It's
the day on which everyone gets
out of town for the weekend,
except the local merchants, who
are supposed to get a civic holi-
day, but spend it working like
mad at the service club carni-
val, raising money for some
worthy cause. It isn't even a
national holiday. Big-city stores
ignore it.
Labor Day, as we all know,
far from being a tribute to or-
ganized labor, is a day on which
nobody does a tap of work, ex-
cept for getting their kids ready
for school, or closing up the cot-
tage.
The next in insignificance is
difficult to choose. We have Do-
minion Day, of course. Once it
was a day of horse races, pic-
nics, boat excursions, and
speeches in the park. Now it
is merely a day which, annoy-
ingly, doesn't always fail on a
Monday or Friday.
And we have that whatever-it-
is Day in May. It used to be
Queen Victoria's Birthday. In
the morning trees were planted.
For the rest of the day, and
night, you burned your fingers
of Co. recently advertised Great
Day hair colouring for men in
Look and Sports Illustrated ma-
gazines. Great Day is designed
for the man Who, for some reason
does not want his grey hair to
show.
So let's stop criticizing the
youth for their long hair (the fad
will probably Soon blow over);
we may find the middle aged man
Will become more of a concern
than we now anticipate,
Bill Jeffery
wars of destruction".
That is so and yet we must
not succumb to the deadening
cynicism which would go on to
say that because of all these
things all the efforts that are
being made today to create a
better world for people are
doomed to failure.
Things can be bright enough
if we have the Insight to see that
God has a purpose for us and
for our world. If we see that
fallenness and pride' and failure
are never the last word. If we
see that His purpose is love and
life not hatred and death.
Even with regard to elusive
peace, even with regard to the
attempts to meet the problems
of hunger and disease there is
reason for hope. Here too things
can be bright enough.
We need to keep all the facts
in perspective here too there
are redeeming features.
One man who has spent most
of his life in international ser-
vice has said, "The ideals of
Christian social action have been
incorporated into our social
structures to an extent never
before experienced and at a rate
unprecedented in history.
"Peace Is not simply the ab-
sence of war. Peace cannot sur-
vive in a vacuum. It has to have
the air of freedom, the nourish-
ment of proteins, the warmth of
clothing and housing, the oppor-
tunity to work, the means to
communicate.
"Our present world problems
have been with us from time
immemorial. But never until the
twentieth century have the gov-
ernments of the world sat down
together to take action and to
take if fast".
In other words there is bright-
ness enough in this area too.
Surely each of us in the light of
our own experience can find
enough light to affirm there will
be enough bright intervals in the
darkness of our world to keep us
going.
In these days of fear and change
we all need the inner serenity,
the inner stability, the inner
steadfastness which we see ex-
pressed in Jesus' life again and
again.
We must be concerned, in-
volved, active — yes, But rattled,
panicky, shook up, scared — no.
on firecrackers and your eye-
brows on Roman Candles. I guess
what we're supposed to do now
is sit around and think of our
Commonwealth brother in Zam-
bia and Senegal, or the Queen,
whose birthday is in another
month, or something? What we
actually do is open the cottage
or go fishing.
And then of course, there is
New Year's Day. Hangovers and
broken resolutions. Actually,
New Year's depends on how fer-
vently you first-footed it on the
preceding eve. It can be as bleak
as a beverage room, or as ram-
bunctious as a rooster. But a-
head of it there lie three cold,
dark dreary and deadly months
of winter.
The two saddest holidays of
the year are Remembrance Day
and Good Friday. And, appropri-
ately, they come at the most dis-
mal times of the year.
On Nov. 11th, the sky weeps,
the widows and mothers weep,
the flags droop at half-mast and
the bells toll. The only joint in
town that jumps is the Legion
Hall. After the solemn rites have
ended, old cronies gather to ex-
change lies, enjoy good food and
drink, and listen to the inevitable
speaker trying to convince them
it was all worth-while.
GoOd Friday is gloom, dark-
ness and bitter wind, remnants
of snow drifts. A day of death,
sacrifice and sorrow. Cold, cold,
and the earth is dead and frozen.
Christmas is another thing. A
season of peace and joy on earth
with goodwill toward men, ac-
cording to the ads and the in-
terminable carols. But, let's be
honest. By the time The Day haS
arrived, you are baffled, bushed
and broke.
That leaves nothing else but
Thanksgiving. That's my choice,
every year. It's the best Cana-
dian holiday, and we had a won-
derful one this year.
First, there are the physical
delights. Weather is usually fine
—brisk and bright. Scenery is
magnificient: blue, bronze and
crimson. Blood bubbles in the
veins. Fire feels good. Food
tastes like never before. Lungs
lap clean air. Sleep is sweet,
smooth and as dreamless as
Whipped honey.
And then there's the thanks-
giving itself. Thanks for good
health, Thanks I'm alive. Thanks
fOr children. Thanks for a good
harvest, or fat beef, or a steady
job. Thanks for a chance to go
on living through another year
of those other holidays until I
Can say thanks again.
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